Christie backs Scott Walker in Wisconsin as recall election nears

View full sizeAndrew Mills/The Star-LedgerNew Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, shown in Atlantic City in March, was in Wisconsin today to support controversial Gov. Scott Walker, who faces a recall election.

OAK CREEK, Wisc. —Who knew New Jersey and Wisconsin had so much in common?

Gov. Chris Christie told voters here today that if they support Gov. Scott Walker’s fight to stay in office amid a recall effort, their state can follow what he described as New Jersey’s path toward economic recovery.

The Republican governor drew no distinction between the pension and benefit reforms pushed through New Jersey’s Democrat-controlled Legislature and Walker’s near-elimination of collective bargaining rights for public-sector unions — actions that flooded the Madison statehouse with protesters and could make him Wisconsin’s first governor to be dumped during his term.

“You see what I’ve been able to do is give Scott and the people of Wisconsin a little preview of what good conservative governance can do for states,” Christie told several hundred people at a landscaping equipment maintenance shop near Milwaukee. “New Jersey is giving a preview for Wisconsin as to good things than can happen when you stand up for the people of your state and stand against the special interests who have owned these state capitals for much too long.”

The rally came in the middle of Christie’s daylong swing through the Badger State to whip up support for Walker. He also spoke at a fundraiser luncheon in Green Bay and another in the Milwaukee area. The bank of cameras were there not just for Walker’s fight, but also because Christie is often mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Peeling off his suit jacket — just as he does at town hall meetings at home — Christie drew laughs at his jokes about “Jersey Shore,” predicted that his fiscal conservative policies will translate into an income tax cut this July and touched on themes from his stump speeches for Romney across the country.

“For the next five weeks, Wisconsin is going to be the center of the American political universe,” he said. “For the next five weeks, America is going to find out the answer to: What is more powerful, the people or the money and special interests from Washington, D.C.? Wisconsin will answer that question.”

Introducing him as a “good friend” who campaigned for him twice in 2010, Walker said Christie gave him “a sense of courage a year before I took office because he was doing it in arguably one of the toughest places in the country.”

Walker faces a Republican primary with nominal opposition on Tuesday and a June 5 general election against the winner of the Democratic primary.

An April survey from Public Policy Polling gave Walker a slight lead against any of the potential Democratic challengers. The Walker camp on Monday announced a three-month fundraising total of $13 million, exceeding his challengers’ war chests.

Unions have largely funded and supported the recall effort in Wisconsin. Steve Wollmer, spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association teachers union, said: “Scott Walker is facing recall because he eviscerated public education and the jobs of Wisconsin teachers. Chris Christie clearly supports those goals, and New Jersey voters should bear that in mind.”

Daniel DiSalvo, an assistant political science professor at City College of New York who has written about unions, said Christie has stressed that he never challenged the idea of collective bargaining.

“Christie has probably recognized the reality of his political situation. In Wisconsin, the Republicans ran the table.”